NGSS and the Dimension of Crosscutting Concepts: Setting the Stage for Student Sense-Making in Science

How many times as a classroom teacher have you asked your students, “What do you observe?” When I was teaching middle school science, I asked that question on more than one occasion. Often the lesson hinged upon students noticing and wondering about an aspect of a video, demo, or some other stimulus to engage them in the lesson. Students’ responses were varied and energetic, but none of them observed what I wanted them to observe. I often had to resort to pointing out the phenomenon, and as a result, I took away students’ opportunity for discovery. It left me scratching my head. Why aren’t students observing what was so obvious to me?

The answer to my question can be found in the 2012 work A Framework for K–12 Science Education, namely, Crosscutting Concepts, or CCCs. These concepts bridge disciplinary boundaries and have explanatory value throughout science and engineering. They include patterns; cause and effect; scale, proportion, and quantity; systems and system models; energy and matter; structure and function; stability and change. 

Do these themes sound familiar? They should. In the 1993 publication Benchmarks for Science Literacy, part of AAAS’ Project 2061, these were referred to as Big Ideas or Themes. In the National Science Education Standards, they were called Unifying Themes and Concepts. So why were these themes, despite being around for so long, rarely used in the classroom? The answer is simple: classroom educators did not know their purpose and how to use them effectively to help students make sense of the phenomena they encounter in the classroom and their lives.

Since the 2012 release of the Framework, there has been a rejuvenation of how science is being taught and how students learn. The Next Generation Science Standards, or NGSS, embraced this seminal document and incorporated the CCCs as one of its three dimensions, along with scientific and engineering practices, or SEPs, and disciplinary core ideas, or DCIs. They are now a part of the knowledge and skills that students must attain as part of their K–12 science education. States that have adopted or adapted the NGSS have spelled out the CCCs more clearly, to make them more useful for educators and students.

What Are the Crosscutting Concepts?

Each of the crosscutting concepts used in the NGSS highlights a unique perspective where the student is led to ask productive questions to understand and explain the problem or phenomenon being investigated.

1. Patterns: Observed patterns of forms and events guide organization and classification, and they prompt questions about relationships and the factors that influence them.
2. Cause and Effect: Mechanism and explanation. Events have causes, sometimes simple, sometimes multifaceted. A major activity of science is investigating and explaining causal relationships and the mechanisms by which they are mediated. Such mechanisms can then be tested across given contexts and used to predict and explain events in new contexts.
3. Scale, Proportion, and Quantity: In considering phenomena, it is critical to recognize what is relevant at different measures of size, time, and energy and to recognize how changes in scale, proportion, or quantity affect a system’s structure or performance.
4. Systems and System Models: Defining the system under study—specifying its boundaries and making explicit a model of that system—provides tools for understanding and testing ideas that are applicable throughout science and engineering.
5. Energy and Matter: Flows, cycles, and conservation. Tracking fluxes of energy and matter into, out of, and within systems helps one understand the systems’ possibilities and limitations.
6. Structure and Function: The way in which an object or living thing is shaped and its substructure determine many of its properties and functions.
7. Stability and Change: For natural and built systems alike, conditions of stability and determinants of rates of change or evolution of a system are critical elements of study.

The 7 crosscutting concepts guide student thinking and serve as an aid in sense-making and problem solving. All too often we, as teachers, expect students to discover these concepts on their own, without ever discussing their use. Using the CCCs provides a pathway for investigation and helps students focus on aspects of a phenomenon or problem on which they can then employ scientific and engineering practices as tools for investigation.

The CCCs are essential elements to enrich the SEPs and disciplinary core ideas.

Purpose of the Crosscutting Concepts in the Next Generation Science Standards

In the NGSS, CCCs are conceptual tools that students can use when examining unfamiliar situations to find an approach that helps with sense-making. It might be helpful to think of each CCC as a lens through which the student views novel problems or phenomena. The CCCs allow students to focus their thinking on a particular aspect of what they are observing. According to the 2008 book Ready, Set, SCIENCE! Putting Research to Work in K–8 Science Classrooms, when students are engaged in figuring out explanations of phenomenon using the SEPs and CCCs, they make their thinking visible.

Crosscutting Concepts Example

Let’s look at an example of crosscutting concepts used in a middle school science lesson.

Consider a middle school student observing water forming on a glass of ice water on a humid day. Curiosity and wonder are natural stimulants that drive student motivation. Presented with a phenomenon, the student begins to gather information to satisfy their natural curiosity. Their first questions would likely be about the phenomenon:

• Where does the water come from?
• What makes the water form?
• Why doesn’t water form on a hot coffee mug?

From these questions, students can begin the sense-making process and gather further information. Students can incorporate the SEPs. For instance, they could develop models to show their initial ideas of what is causing the water to form on the glass. Using their models, they can plan and conduct investigations to test their models, analyze the results, and construct explanations of their investigation. Throughout this process of inquiry, the students are engaged in the same investigative process that scientists and engineers employ. Students also can revise their thinking based upon investigation experience and discourse with their classmates. In sum, they are actively figuring out the phenomenon rather than passively learning about it.

In theory this makes sense, but as classroom teachers know only too well, theory only works in publications. Let us reconsider our condensation example.

How can the teacher highlight for students the aspect of the phenomenon that is the focus of the lesson? The answer can be found in the way the teacher designs questions and prompts.

• Students’ thinking will focus on the CCC of cause and effect if the teacher prompts students by asking, “What are some possible causes for water to collect on a glass of ice water?”
• Students will look at the phenomenon through the lens of energy if the teacher prompts students by asking, “In what way did energy flow during the process of water collecting on the side of the glass?” 

Notice how the specific CCC is embedded in the question or prompt. The CCCs help students to make connections across all science disciplines.

When designing lessons, teachers can decide what aspect of a phenomenon they want students to focus on. Once decided, an important part of the planning process is for the teacher to craft specific prompts embedding CCCs within a prompt or question to be used during the lesson. Using these CCCs effectively supports student sense-making. This reminded me of the frustration I mentioned earlier, about asking students the open-ended question, “What do you observe?” The question never pointed to the aspect of the phenomenon that seemed obvious to me. Now I know that having them concentrate on specific aspects of the phenomenon eliminates the “noise,” allowing students to focus on the phenomenon.

Time to reflect on the use of the CCCs is essential for students to construct explanations.

CCCs in the NGSS, Are a Progression

Within the entirety of the Framework and the resulting NGSS, the CCCs are prevalent in every grade. They are intended to be a progression where the language and use of the crosscutting concepts in science increase in sophistication with each grade level. Students build upon their understanding and utility of the CCCs throughout their K–12 experience. This does not happen passively. Teachers must purposefully use the CCCs in their questions and prompts with consistency and establish expectations for students to use the CCCs in their explanations. When teachers use CCCs as a consistent part of their discourse with students, the CCCs become part of their everyday language.

HMH Into Science incorporates the CCCs within the lessons and ancillary materials to support implementation of the NGSS in the classroom. Inclusion of the CCCs is designed to help students structure the way they are thinking when exposed to phenomena or design-based problems. The series also provides teachers with prompts and questions based upon the CCCs to pose to students in every phase of the lessons.

In this example, using a DCI for kindergarten, students use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive (NGSS K-LS1-1). Using the phenomenon that plants have specific needs to grow, here are some sample prompts that the teacher might use to initiate a discussion with students. Note that the CCC being used in these prompts is written in bold.

• TEACHER: Think about the plant on the shelf in the classroom and a plant that you might have at home. What pattern do you see in how both plants grow?
• STUDENTS would think of patterns of things that plants and animals have in common. Sample responses: “The plant needs sunlight.” “The plant needs water.” “The plant needs soil.”

The teacher may go on to prompt:

• TEACHER: What are some other things that would cause plants not to grow?
• STUDENTS would shift their focus to what might cause the plant not to grow. Sample responses: “We had a plant at home, but we did not give it enough sunlight, so it died. Plants need a lot of sunlight.” “Plants don’t move around. They just sit there. But trees grow big and tall even though they don’t move. They must get their food from the roots.”

The teacher can guide students along the lesson phases with this questioning technique that uses the CCCs. Using the responses from students during the engage phase, the teacher can move into the explore phase using similar questioning techniques.

When asking for evidence to support their responses, often students include the CCC after having been prompted.

Science crosscutting concepts shouldn’t be saved for a certain day of the week. Don’t treat them like tacos and only use them on “CCC Tuesdays!” A dialogue with students that requires the teacher to develop questions and prompts using the CCCs should happen every day. If all K–12 science teachers use CCCs consistently, the sophistication of responses and sense-making will increase as students build on their understanding of the CCCs as a common language and apply them to new situations.

Takeaways

Crosscutting Concepts, or CCCs:

• Provide a common language between the teacher and the student that progresses throughout the student’s K–12 experience as understanding grows and is applied to different contexts
• Are not passive questions at the end of instruction, and should be used throughout the entirety of instruction
• Are important tools for students to make sense of phenomena and problems
• Can be called upon as a common sense-making tool when confronted with novel or unfamiliar problems or phenomenon
• Are a lens to frame an aspect of a phenomenon or problem in a specific way

When Using CCCs, Teachers Should:

• Craft questions and prompts that highlight specific aspects of a phenomenon or design-problem being addressed
• Provide students experiences where the CCCs are useful
• Ask students to use specific CCCs in their responses or written work as they cite evidence for their explanations
• Have students reflect on how the CCC helped them understand more about what they are investigating
• Recognize that CCCs are only effective when they become familiar to the student
• Avoid the misconception that CCCs can only be addressed through a worksheet or as a response on a quiz or test, i.e., something that is tangible and easily measurable
• Understand that after using CCCs in their questions and prompts over time, they will notice students using the language of CCCs in their explanations to support their sense-making
• Gain a formative assessment perspective of student learning by providing evidence of the student’s progression through the sense-making process and through learning via discourse

How I wish I had a working understanding of CCCs when I was teaching! However, my experience in the classroom has fueled my passion for sense-making tools. As science educators, our goal is not to simply “cover” the material but to support students’ development of skills and knowledge that they will carry forward throughout their lives. The CCCs are the lenses that will allow students to make sense across all domains of science and engineering. HMH Into Science embraces the importance of the Next Generation Science Standards and the dimension of crosscutting concepts and provides teachers with the instructional approaches necessary to have students think like scientists.

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Explore HMH Into Science K–5 and 6–8 for flexible, phenomena-based, student-centered science solutions.